Marsilio has pre-empted the Italian rights to Mirabilis by Anni Kytömäki, marking the 3rd foreign deal for this title.
Mirabilis by Anni Kytömäki continues its wonderful success: Marsilio has pre-empted the Italian rights, marking the 3rd foreign deal for this title.
Francesca Varotto, editor in chief of foreign fiction at Marsilio, has commented:
“We feel that with her epic story Anni Kytömäki will fit perfectly in our list, along with authors like Nino Haratischwili and Adam Johnson […]. We love big stories, the ones with many threads to follow, the ones that sweep you away.”
Mirabilis became a sensation in Finland immediately upon its release: it sold 5.000 copies in two weeks, and collected glowing reviews on Finnish media. It was in the spotlight at the Frankfurt Fair, where it was pre-empted in Sweden by Norstedts and in Denmark by People’s.
Mirabilis is a great novel of journeys and adventure following two generations of outcast women, both of whom share a deep bond with nature. The narration starts out at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, and carries the reader all the way to the 1930s in a journey that stretches from Finland to the Amur, and still further on. Riikka is a young woman of unusual strength, who makes the brave decision of leaving for the Amur on a colonial expedition, and becomes fascinated with a tiger in a way that will mark her forever. Along the way she gives birth to a set of twins, one of whom is a girl, Ella. Unconventional like her mother, and determined to live life on her own terms, Ella becomes an acrobat and brushes with death one too many times. As a result, Ella develops a strong connection to a recently extinct bird, and a strong interest in the scientific discourse around extinction. These ingredients, along with unanswered questions from the past, result in a epic narrative that draws readers in, and that one never wishes to leave. In Finland, Mirabilis is published by Gummerus.
Anni Kytömäki is one of Finland’s strongest and most-loved contemporary voices. She won the Finlandia Prize in 2020 with Margarita, which sold about 90.000 copies in Finland alone.
Marsilio is a beautiful publishing house based in Venice. They are the Italian home of, among others, bestselling Nordic authors like Stieg Larsson, Åsa Larsson, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Ann-Helén Laestadius and Maja Lunde. Their list also includes Nobel-prize winner and Pulitzer-prize winner authors, like Adam Johnson and Herta Mueller, and world-bestselling authors like Michael Christie, Kate Atkinson, and Madeline Miller. We’re delighted to see Anni Kytömäki in such great company.
Warmest congratulations to the author and the publisher!